It's National Heart Month!

National Heart Month is an annual campaign run by The British Heart Foundation to raise awareness of heart and circulatory (cardiovascular) disease, and to help raise funds for research and prevention. There are lots of things you can do to keep your heart healthy whatever age you are. This American infogrpahic spells out the little yet very important life changes we can make to make our hearts more healthy.

In conjunction with National Heart Month, The British Heart Foundation have launched a new advertising campaign to teach people about the importance of hands-only CPR. According to The British Heart Foundation, 30,000 people have a cardiac arrest outside of hospital every year. But knowing how to administer cardiopulmonary recuscitation (CPR) may increase a person’s chances of survival and avoid damage caused by lack of oxygen to the brain. The British Heart Foundation’s ‘Hands-Only CPR’ campaign uses tough guy Vinnie Jones in their latest advert to demonstrate that “it’s not as hard as it looks”.

The new video, which has gained almost 1.5 million YouTube views since it was uploaded 4 weeks ago shows how hard and fast hands-only CPR to the Beat of ‘Stayin’ Alive’ by the Bee Gees can help the lives of people who have had a cardiac arrest. The choice of music isn’t just for entertainment. Heart experts have widely recommended rescuers compress a victim’s chest to the beat of that ’70s song because it moves at an ideal 103 beats per minute, or about twice a second.

As well as being entertaining, this is an informative and potentially life-saving video. As Vinnie Jones says: ‘There are times in life when being tough comes in handy.’ Let’s hope the video achieves its aim in urging more people to carry out CPR in a medical emergency.

See the video below, and shop your support on Twitter with the hastag #hardandfast.